CA Election Results: Former rebels favoured by marginalised communities
NEPALGUNJ, 27 April 2008 (IRIN) - Radha Biswokarma is ecstatic that the former Maoist rebels won a landslide victory in the historic Constituent Assembly (CA) elections held in Nepal on 10 April.
The Dalits are among the most neglected, socially discriminated and economically deprived of Nepalese communities and have always been under-represented in Nepalese politics and civil administration, analysts say.
According to a 2001 census by Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Dalits make up about 13 percent of the country’s 29 million inhabitants. However, some local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say Dalits make up more than 20 percent of the population.
Party for the poor and neglected
The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPNM) was the first political force to advocate for the rights of Dalits, who strongly supported the Maoists’ armed rebellion, dubbed the ‘People’s War’, according to political analysts. The former rebels trained and recruited Dalits in most of the country’s 75 districts to work as their political cadres.
“Our real representatives were elected”
“For the first time, I will see a leader from my own community,” said Sushila Nepali, a Dalit woman from west Nepal. She explained that the Maoists were the only party to have Dalit representatives elected in the assembly.